Potentials of Parallel Processing on CAN Networks

CAN (Controller Area Network) protocol is a networking protocol intended for microcontroller distributed systems such that to run multiple (different) tasks on multiple processors without shared memory. With few modifications, the distributed architecture of CAN networks becomes adequate for parallel processing as well such that to run one task, with multiple data, concurrently in parallel on multiple processors, or other types of parallel processing that suit the distributed systems architecture. This paper discusses the possibilities of parallel processing on CAN. The CAN features that already pertain to parallel processing are contemplated. In addition, the required modifications to the CAN architecture to transfer it into a parallel computing/processing system are proposed, and a particular architecture, the Motorola 9S12X that can achieve this parallelism is cited. Also, the applications that may be executed efficiently in parallel on CAN networks are discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of this proposed parallelism and its impact on performance are studied.